Rolled-up Trousers

Sardar, conservatives and liberals

Ziauddin Sardar has criticised the government-backed 'roadshow' of scholars that aimed to tackle extremism. In this week's New Statesman he says only 'traditionalists' and 'conservatives' were invited to speak rather than 'liberals' like himself:

As a result, differences between conservatives and liberals are much more pronounced. Conservatives such as the intellectual Tariq Ramadan and the American preacher Hamza Yusuf Hanson insist the only people with the right to interpret Islam are the ulema (religious scholars), who must seek solutions to contemporary problems within a largely ossified tradition. While Ramadan has called for the hudood laws, the problematic crime-and-punishment aspects of Islamic law, to be suspended, he is a strong supporter of the sharia. Hanson rejects the whole idea of religious reform and presents a romanticised notion of tradition where the sheikh or the teacher knows all.

What does any of this have to do with the price of cheese? Yet again Sardar is using the tragedies of 9/11 and 7/7 to forward this agenda of chucking the Qur'an out of the window. As if the Beeston bombers listened to mainstream "conservative" scholars stressing the importance of Islamic law, and from that decided to do their wicked deed. Even the most ardent critics of these imams would acknowledge they condemn terror, whatever their view on the importance of Qur'an and shariah.

More over at Blogistan.

When was the last time England beat a decent team?

Where I was watching it, I heard fireworks go off a minute after the England match ended today.

It was though entirely predictable. Can you remember the last time England beat a decent team at the World Cup or European Championships knockout stage? Certainly not in my lifetime. Difference in 2006 is that it didn't happen at the hands of one of the World Cup grandees - Germany, Argentina or Brazil.

Even when they reached the semis in 1990 it was by scraping past the might of Cameroon and Belgium. There's been a few friendly victories, wins in qualifiers, but not at the biggest stage when it really mattered.

I wrote at the beginning of the World Cup that Sven Goran Eriksson's tactics would be their downfall. Too eager to please all his players, at the expense of anything resembling a cohesive system. All other teams put out a structure that worked, with talent to bring off the bench later in the game. This doesn't matter because I believe that there is something indelibly in the footballing psyche of English football that doesn't believe they can really beat the better teams - an inferiority complex. When it comes down to it, there isn't the wit, the guile, the wherewithal to make it happen.

And this time they fell to Portugal. The English press has been lamenting how badly the team has played this tournament. But again, does anyone remember the last time England played well? When they beat Germany 5-1 in 2001, and not since. Sven was entrusted with too much and didn't deliver, and in truth never looked like doing so. Now the reins have been passed to Steve McClaren, but nothing will change until England get a manager who can make them believe.

Rupert Murdoch and nationalism

Rupert Murdoch speaking in Australia this week:

"You have to be careful about Muslims, who have a very strong, in many ways a fine, but very strong, religion, which supersedes any sense of nationalism wherever they go."

This would be the same Rupert Murdoch who changed his own nationality to American to further his media empire. His own ego "supercedes any sense of nationalism" in him then.

Next he'll be accusing us of having a global domination agenda.